Despite the USDA’s own proposal from last year, Sec. Vilsack’s department is now reversing course on deregulating Roundup Ready Alfalfa. According to the Department’s environmental review, the alfalfa was judged substantially equivalent to other varieties without red flags for regulators. But instead of taking the news as a green light to let the alfalfa on [...]
Archive for the ‘Organic/Sustainable/Local’ Category
28 Apr
Justices Skeptical of Lower Court’s Biotech Alfalfa Decision
Supreme Court justices on Tuesday sharply questioned a lower court’s decision that has prohibited Monsanto Co. from selling biotech alfalfa seeds, possibly paving the way for the company to distribute the seeds for the first time since 2007. Several justices appeared skeptical that the lower court had the authority to fully ban the sale of [...]
23 Apr
Supreme Court Hears Biotech Alfalfa Case on Tuesday
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments Tuesday involving a federal judge’s temporary ban on Roundup Ready Alfalfa, setting the stage for the court’s first-ever ruling on biotech crops. Legal experts do not expect a blockbuster decision on the merits of regulating biotech crops, but the case, Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms, [...]
22 Apr
Administration Seeks Funding for Ag in Developing Nations
The Obama administration wants to add $408 million to a global fund to boost food production and encourage good farming practices in the developing world, the Treasury Department announced on Thursday. The fund, created after the Group of 20 meeting in Pittsburgh last year, will begin with contributions from the governments of Canada ($230 million), [...]
31 Mar
Organic Food Poised for Comeback
While sales of organic food have taken a hit in recent months, new research shows that consumers will be purchasing more of the product in the next few years. The natural and organic food and beverage category saw rapid growth of more than 24 percent from 2006 to 2008 but stalled during the recession in [...]
25 Mar
Nutritionists: No Need to Eat Organic to be Healthy
USDA, which runs the National Organic Program, considers organic agriculture a “production philosophy” and has stated that an organic label does not imply that a product is superior to conventionally produced foods. Nutritionists are saying there is no need to eat organic to be healthy, and it is more important to choose less processed food [...]
10 Mar
The Primitive Food Movement
The New York Times economics blog, Freakonomics, (which follows the methodology of the best selling book by the same name) has outlined what it calls the ‘Primitive Food Movement’ in a recent post. Americans are currently embracing a strange sort of primitivism… This trend appears to be a unique response to a declension narrative that [...]
8 Feb
EAT – Like a Caveman
The Wall Street Journal outlines yet another odd amateur dietitian, a la Michael Pollan. If the video does not load, please click on the link above.
5 Feb
USDA Releases Survey Results on 2008 Organic Production
With organic production on the rise across the United States, the USDA has released survey results about the state of Colorado’s Organic Production farms. According to Bill Meyer, director of the Colorado Field Office of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, “This (survey) was an opportunity for organic producers to share their voices and help ensure [...]
20 Jan
Forbes Writer Goes After Critics of ‘Corporate Agriculture’
No sector in America is better positioned for the future than agriculture, if it is allowed to reach its potential, according to a column penned by Joel Kotkin, a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University. “Like manufacturers and homebuilders before them, farmers have found themselves in the crosshairs of urban aesthetes and [...]
5 Jan
Michael Pollan is at it Again
Last night on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, local food advocate Michael Pollan questioned why Americans would have any problem with the government regulating what they can and can’t eat. more about “Michael Pollan is at it Again“, posted with vodpod
28 Dec
Investors See Farming as a Way to Grow Detroit
Reporting from Detroit – On the city’s east side, where auto workers once assembled cars by the millions, nature is taking back the land. There’s so much land available and it’s begging to be used,” said Michael Score, president of the Hantz Farms, which is buying up abandoned sections of the city’s 139-square-mile landscape and [...]
6 Aug
New Cell Phone Made From Corn
Sprint and Samsung have teamed up to create the first phone made with corn bio-plastic the ‘Reclaim’ The phone also has a 2 megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, can accept microSD cards (we assume) up to 32GB, and has Sprint Navigation onboard. The packaging will be eco-friendly as well, as it’s constructed from 70 percent recycled [...]
30 Jul
Study: ‘Organic Has No Health Benefits’
The BBC writes… Organic food is no healthier than ordinary food, a large independent review has concluded. There is little difference in nutritional value and no evidence of any extra health benefits from eating organic produce, UK researchers found. The Food Standards Agency who commissioned the report said the findings would help people make an [...]
Shawn Martini
Chad Vorthmann
Rachel Vermillion
Garin Vorthmann
Crystal Korrey
Troy B
El Sagehorn
Brent Boydston
